A perfect crime is a

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

that is undetected, unattributed to an identifiable perpetrator, or otherwise unsolved or unsolvable. The term is used

colloquial Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation amo ...

ly in law and fiction (especially

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professiona ...

) for both crimes committed as crimes foremost, and those committed as a kind of technical achievement on the part of the perpetrator. The term perfect crime connotes one that is (or appears likely to be) ''unable'' to be solved, which distinguishes it from one that has merely not yet been solved, or where everyday chance or procedural matters frustrate a

conviction In law, a conviction is the determination by a court of law that a defendant is Guilty (law), guilty of a crime. A conviction may follow a guilty plea that is accepted by the court, a jury trial in which a verdict of guilty is delivered, or a ...

. In certain contexts, such as a poisoning, some argue the bar must be raised to where the mere detection of a crime having been committed renders it imperfect.

Overview

As used by some criminologists and others who study criminal investigations (including mystery writers), a perfect crime goes unsolved not because of incompetence in the investigation, but because of the cleverness and skill of the criminal. Would-be perfect crimes are a popular subject in

and

movies A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...

. They include '' Perfect Crime (play)'', ''

Rope A rope is a group of yarns, Plying, plies, fibres, or strands that are plying, twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have high tensile strength and can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger ...

'', ''

Double Indemnity ''Double Indemnity'' is a 1944 American film noir directed by Billy Wilder and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. Wilder and Raymond Chandler adapted the screenplay from James M. Cain's Double Indemnity (novel), novel of the same na ...

'', '' Special 26 ,'' '' Strangers on a Train'', '' The Postman Always Rings Twice'', '' Witness for the Prosecution'', and '' Dial M for Murder''.

Varying definitions

A murder committed by somebody who had never before met the victim, has no criminal record, steals nothing, and tells no one might be a perfect crime. According to criminologists and scientists, this casual definition of perfect crime exists. Another possibility is that a crime might be committed in an area of high public traffic, where DNA from a wide variety of people is present, making the sifting of evidence akin to 'finding a needle in a haystack'. An intentional killing in which the death is never identified as murder is an example of one of the more rigorous definitions of perfect crime. Other criminologists narrow the range to only those crimes that are not detected at all. By definition, it can never be known if such perfect crimes exist. Many "close calls" have been observed, however—enough to make investigators aware of the possibility of a perfect crime.

Unprosecutable crime

In 2005, Professor Brian C. Kalt of Michigan State University College of Law put forth an argument that the Vicinage Clause of the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the Supremacy Clause, supreme law of the United States, United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally includi ...

– requiring jury selection from the population of the state and court district where the crime is committed – may permit the commission of the "perfect crime" on the technical grounds that a jury trial could not be carried out. Since there are no residents in the portion of

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, with small portions extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U ...

that lies within the state of

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

, and since the entire park has been placed within the jurisdiction of the

United States District Court for the District of Wyoming United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * United (2003 film), ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * United (2011 film) ...

, there are no residents available to form a jury for crimes committed in this specific "

Venn diagram A Venn diagram is a widely used diagram style that shows the logical relation between set (mathematics), sets, popularized by John Venn (1834–1923) in the 1880s. The diagrams are used to teach elementary set theory, and to illustrate simple ...

" location. Similar rationale contributed to the dissolution of Bullfrog County, Nevada, in 1989; because the county was unpopulated, and was not assigned to a judicial district, criminal trials could not legally be held there under Nevada state law.

Real-life examples

In March 2009, a $6.8 million jewel theft in Germany was described as being close to a perfect crime, in that despite having

DNA evidence Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

(but no other evidence), the police were unable to bring the case to court since the DNA belonged to one of a pair of identical twins, and faced with denials by both, it could not be proven which of the two was the criminal. Other examples of one, or possibly both, identical twins avoiding punishment include juries unable to reach a verdict in a 2004 Boston rape trial, a 2005 Houston rape trial and a 2009 Malaysia drug-smuggling trial. The infamous 1987 Opera House heist in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

by a group of men impersonating CBI officers was described as a perfect crime.

References

External links

* {{cite web , title=Horizon – How to commit the perfect Murder , website=BBC TV/Radio , date=2007-04-10 , url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/perfectmurder/ , access-date=2019-09-05 Criminology Crimes